The invisible auditor model is a variation of the
invisible witness
Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen. An object in this state is said to be ''invisible'' (literally, "not visible"). The phenomenon is studied by physics and perceptual psychology.
Since objects can be seen by light in ...
model.
Overview
The invisible witness model was put forth by classical
film theorists such as
Hugo Münsterberg
Hugo Münsterberg (; June 1, 1863 – December 16, 1916) was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to industrial/organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, edu ...
,
V. Pudovkin, and
André Bazin[James Lastra, “Fidelity Versus Intelligibility,” in: Sound Technology and the American Cinema (Columbia UP, 2000), 138-14] who wanted to "account for narration by claiming that editing mimicked the perception of an "invisible observer".
This model presents the idea that the edits reflect the shifting perception of a "real witness" who moves around the space viewing the scenes.
When watching a film, it's never shot strictly from the Point of view of the
cameraman but it's shot from a series of different angles all around the scene jumping from
first person perspective
In video games, first person is any graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player's character, or a viewpoint from the cockpit or front seat of a vehicle driven by the character. The most popular type of first-person video gam ...
to
bird's-eye view
A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downwards. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photograph, but also a draw ...
to give the perception to the audience that they can see as much detail and perspective of the scene as possible.
James Lastra takes this model and applies it to
sound. Where the invisible auditor model states that the recording should produce a sound as though it were being heard from the best seat in the house.This can best be understood when talking about "
sound fidelity
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
";the sound recorded or the sound output is as close to the sound of its origins. This created point of
auditor, where sound was recorded as though it were being listened to by an invisible auditor from the best seat in the house. This is what music artists strive for in their recordings. "This denotes that there is a
linear relationship between input and output and that the notion of sound fidelity in a
recording/ reproduction system is an assessment of this transparency; a measure of how faithful the reproduction is to the original".
[Dow, Robert J. (2010) "Sound Diffusion and the Sonic Image". Retrieved from: http://www.robertdow.org/papers/rdow-sounddiffusion.pdf]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Invisible Auditor
Film theory